Healer

The last few weeks have been harder than normal. Some days I was seriously concerned and felt totally disconnected from my true self. Many tears, prayers, and a stellar FHE from my darling husband later, I'm feeling better and hopeful. I've learned a few crucial things in this small time period, and I want to write about the more spiritual ones later, but for now I am just going to talk about today.

One of the biggest issues we've had here is trying to accomplish our purposes. For my schoolwork, we've been back and forth to hospitals, meeting with everyone from the Human Resources Department to the Executive of Nursing, sending letters, rewriting and resending letters, scanning documents, walking into random clinics, etc. etc. It's been frustrating and completely unlike anything we expected.

I quit my job at the hospital April 11th. That means I haven't seen a patient in over two months. A few days before we arrived, our country director's mother in law suffered a debilitating stroke. She was recently moved home with 24 hour nursing care, physical therapy, speech therapy, and a feeding tube.

Our country director had the brilliant idea to have me come see her mother in law. It helps me because I can count it as clinical hours, and it helps her because she gets my perspective on the care her family member is receiving. Win win.

Today I went to see Prossy (not her real name, but its a common name on all the Share a Coke bottles around here). I wore my scrubs because they make me feel safe and I brought my stethoscope. Prossy is completely coherent and aware, yet she has lost the use of all of her throat muscles. She cannot speak or swallow.

I introduced myself and touched her hand and asked for her permission to perform an assessment.  I moved my stethoscope across her chest, listening to her heart and lungs, while simultaneously looking at her eyes to see if they were equal, round, reactive to light and accommodation (take that, nursing school!). I asked her to squeeze my fingers and then I checked her feet for pulses and capillary refill. Two years ago, remembering all of these things was so daunting. Now I did it all by myself in a foreign country.

I sat with her for a few hours, observing and talking with the other nurses. I found two small but not-so-small things to change to help her be more comfortable, and then it was time to go.

On the boda ride home, my heart felt so light and my mind felt happy. I have a patient! This experience reminded me of a few things:

1-When you're helping, you're happy. I think much of my frustration and depression the last few weeks has been from inactivity. We have bodies for a purpose. We weren't meant to be idle. While we have struggled to find clinical sites and research opportunities, we have also struggled to find ways to occupy our time. DOING something was so liberating.

2-I was meant to be, and NEED to be a nurse. How come two hours with an elderly African woman who can't speak to me made such a difference?? The only explanation I can come up with is I was given the talent and desire to heal and when I don't, the sick people are not the only ones who suffer. I do.

On an unrelated note, we found a West African restaurant and it was SO DELICIOUS. West Africa uses a lot more spices in their cooking than East Africa. Basically, we go through a bottle of ketchup a week to help things taste like flavor. BUT NOT ANYMORE--we found Mama Ashanti's and Benji was so excited to show me all the yummy things from his mission (Except say no to Fufu) and I ate beef. Which thankfully had no bones in it. AKA, iron. My anemic self was so happy.

Also, as I type this we are facetiming with two of Benji's brothers who ARE ON THEIR WAY, TO US. Bearing plenty of processed snack food, and I don't even care. I'm going to eat it all. Family. It's the best thing.

Once again, the photos are not cooperating. Hopefully one of these days I can do a photo only post.